The fleeing woodcutter and his group of refugee brothers were sitting around the fire in the hotel hall. They were restless and not sleepy at all.
"Is the guy we rescued a monster?" one person said in a very low voice. His voice was like a candle in the wind, and the crackling sound of charcoal even drowned out his words. "Orotherthose guys?"[]
"Who cares who they are." Another middle-aged man didn't drink, but he was tongue-tied as if he was drunk. He slapped himself hard - the "snap" sounded particularly loud - and the pain made his tongue a little more obedient. He glanced around the hall anxiously, "What should we do?"
No one knows what to do.
The brothers and sisters looked at each other with fear in their eyes.
"How can they lock us up with those people?" Another person said, "We are not monsters! Do the people in this village want us to die to feed the monster?"
"We want to get out." Then another person expressed their desire. "We're going out."
The woodcutter didn't move. He looked at the quiet, dark staircase, then raised his head and stared at the ceiling above his head. He knew that the person he had rescued was above him, separated by a wall. He couldn't help but his legs were shaking.
He couldn¡¯t help but wonder if he had done something wrong out of kindness and brought the monster back to the village from the wilderness.
¡°If he was really a monsterthe woodcutter found that he could not imagine it anymore. There was no need for him to imagine it. Along the way, the destroyed villages he passed had all their endings revealed in front of him. He was just afraid. He was afraid that if the village suffered such a disaster, it would be all caused by him. Even if he died, he would not be able to atone for this.
The woodcutter felt that he should do something. No matter what, he should do something, even if it was a trivial thing. Otherwise, he would not be able to eliminate the guilt in his heart. He grabbed the logging ax that had been with him for many years at his feet. The hard oak handle had been polished. The familiar touch and heavy burden temporarily suppressed his violently beating heart,
At this moment, his refugee brothers gathered at the door.
They panicked and beat the locked door frantically. The door frame rattled and shook, and dust fell with the tremor. "Let us out!" they shouted. The sound echoed through the hotel. The woodcutter turned and glanced at the stairs behind him. They must have been awakened, he suddenly thought uneasily, and we had awakened them.
¡°Dammit, let us out!¡±
¡°Quiet, you idiots,¡± the militiamen shouted at them outside the hotel. "If you continue to make trouble, you will all be thrown into the cell!"
"We are not prisoners!"
The militiaman smashed the door panel with the hilt of his sword, "Go back and sleep. It is up to the village chief to decide whether to let you go or not. It's useless to tell us."
A man suddenly shouted. "Then put us in a cell!" he said loudly, "I would rather be a robber and be treated as a prisoner by you than stay here! Don't put us in a cell with monsters!"
The woodcutter felt his surroundings pause for a few seconds, but the noisy shouts seemed to be able to lift the roof directly.
Everyone wants to be a prisoner, and he can't help but feel sad about this: When did this world become so miserable? Because even in his heart he was willing to be shackled with shackles, and even willing to be tied up with a rope around his neck and dragged ugly and despicably into a dungeon where he would never see the light of day. Even facing torture instruments is better than this unknown fear.
"Don't think too much, the sky is open." The militiamen were shocked and speechless. "Thisthis is impossible."
"Then let us out." The refugees grabbed the chairs and smashed the door panel one after another. "We will die here, you cold-blooded executioners!"
¡°Break open this door and let¡¯s go out on our own!¡±
The woodcutter was escorted to the door. He looked at the brothers shouting around him and hesitated for a while. He had to admit that the quiet second floor and dark staircase brought him great pressure. Their clamor only added to his anger and irritability. He felt like he could barely think. He raised his woodcutter axe.
However, he felt the weight, as if a mountain-like weight had gathered on his axe. He tried to resist this inexplicable force, but no matter how hard he tried, the ax couldn't move at all, as if it was being pulled by a giant with natural supernatural power It wasn't until sweat broke out on his head that he suddenly woke up. , and then his clothes were soaked with cold sweat. This power cannot come from anything else. It could and could only be a monster
The woodcutter struggled to twist his stiffson. He saw that the white air exhaled from the mouths of the people around him turned into white frost.
There was an arctic coldness in the room with the fire burning, and the room was suddenly silent. In the thrilling fear, they trembled, wrapped their clothes tightly, and looked at each other in fear.
The oil lamp on the table went out. The flame of the candle turned into puffs of smoke. The flame in the fireplace was also suppressed into a cold blue fire, dying.
"Fawhat happened?"
"Soldier, speak." One person was almost crying. "Please, speak."
It was quiet outside.
They were holding their breath, as if they were immobilized by magic, not daring to move. A terrifying deathly silence surrounded them, but in the blink of an eye a sudden frightened scream broke the silence, causing them to scream almost simultaneously. But apart from being able to make sounds in their throats, they found to their horror that even the simplest movements were extremely difficult, as if they were bound by invisible chains. Several of them desperately reached into their buckles and pulled out their amulets, and finally the men were freed from their paralysis. However, their first reaction was not to open the door, but to use their immobile companion as a shield and hide behind them. They squatted on the ground, shivering, staring at the hotel door with eyes wide open in fear.
Outside the hotel, the screams of the militiamen had turned into low wails and pleading sobs. "Monsters, monsters¡ª¡ª" The woodcutter, unable to move and closest to the gate, could hear their voices clearly. The monster is out there? He was so stunned that he didn't even know the ax slipped from his hand and fell to the ground.
A sudden sound of hoofbeats echoed in the air, like winter thunder, the steady and ferocious knocking sound of a galloping war horse. Then a huge shadow covered the door and windows. The militiamen cried in panic, but their cries were cut off and frighteningly short.
Then, the sound of iron hooves gradually faded away.
There was silence in the room for several minutes, until the fire in the fireplace burned brightly again. This sudden situation made everyone's breath quicken, and they all dropped what they were holding. But no one went to relight the candles and oil lamps. All eyes were fixed on the closed door, and the only sounds were whispered prayers and heavy breathing.
A thick red liquid flowed into the tavern from under the door. The men grabbed the legs of the chairs next to them as if they were the swords of the Andal paladins, while several women raised amulets to their eyes. The woodcutter swallowed hard, and tremblingly he bent down and picked up the wood-cutting ax at his feet, suddenly feeling that it was as heavy as a thousand pieces. He slowly raised his arm and pointed the sharp blade at the door bolt. He paused, and no one stopped him. So he chopped down hard sawdust flew into the air, and a piece of wood whirled past the corner of his eyebrow. The door that locked them opened. Two headless bodies lay in the dirty dust. Their heads were left in the middle of the street, the black flesh half-hidden in the sacred silver moonlight.
Women screamed in fear and men cursed. The chair was knocked over, and the woodcutter leaned against the wall, his mouth open like a fish out of water. Some started crying, others vomited. A man rushed into the bar frantically, broke the barrel, and drowned himself in the barrel. The hot wine made his twitching stomach feel hot. He sat down in the brandy dripping all over the floor, shaking even harder.
It seemed like a long time passed before the woodcutter plucked up the courage to look outside again:
A row of huge horse hoof prints spread all the way They didn't look like mortal horses The woodcutter swore he had never seen such big footprints. He forced himself to raise his head: at the end of the footprints, there was a village with all the lights extinguished, hidden under the darkness.
This village is dead? Did they survive? The woodcutter couldn't believe it. He slammed the door with all his might.
The huge noise brought back some of their consciousness. They huddled together by the fireplace, huddled together like penguins, and each could feel the other's shivering, cold body that seemed frozen.
"Just now, just now what was that outside what on earth was that?"
Everyone shook their heads in unison. They didn't even dare to look, let alone anything else. The woodcutter saw a little more clearly. In the black tide of rolling mist, the figure flickered. The shape of the figure is not weird, it is a person riding on a horse. He didn't know what it was, and he didn't want to know who the knight was. He is a monster! He only knows this! And he mightmaybe have killed everyone in the village. Except them No, there's
The woodcutter suddenly raised his head and stared at the dark staircase.
¡°From the beginning, they were shouting, they were banging on doors, they were yelling at militiamen, and then the knights showed up and they were screaming¡ allThe sound did not wake them up. They seem to be dead too? Right above their heads. The woodcutter suddenly realizes that the hotel he thought was safe is no longer safe.
"Upstairs, upstairs" Another person also realized this. He pointed at the dark staircase with trembling fingers, staring at the woodcutter with frightened eyes, unable to say a complete sentence.
Everyone is closer to each other. They held their breath and huddled in the corner, looking at the broken door creaking in the cold wind for a while, and looking at the silent staircase, feeling in panic all day long. They didn't know what else might emerge from the shadows. The woodcutter plucked up the courage to stand up and planned to go and have a look alone.
"Don't go!" Several hands grabbed his clothes. "Wewe need youraxe."
The woodcutter had to sit down again. He couldn't live without it either. In this long dark night, this cold logging ax was the only thing he could rely on. Although he deeply doubted whether this mortal weapon used by ordinary people could hurt the knight. Through the window, the woodcutter took one last look at the sky: it was dark. He prayed deeply: Dawn will come soon.